Monthly Archives: September 2014

It’s hard taking over the world when you are struggling to conquer your own parental guilt. I’ve been so focused on getting the spawnlings through the school term (with chest infections and teething nights and stuff) – I forgot to keep the fun in world domination.

So, let’s get back in to it!! And what better way than a visit to the Aztec exhibition at the Australian Museum. Chocolate, blood, and sunshine – all the important elements.
When you think Aztec, you may think of blood sacrifices; or maybe just a good family taco dinner. Maybe they’re one and the same. But the Aztecs were so much more.

Let’s take a moment to say thank you to the Aztecs: for tomatoes, avocados, burritos, Taco Tuesday, bouncy balls for handball (actually no – I won’t thank that one! I’m sick of how quickly 8yo spawnlings lose the damn things).

And yes, chocolate. Blood in my veins as offering to the gods – sweet chocolate. Hell, the Aztecs even used cocoa beans as currency. One for a tomato; 30 for a small rabbit; 300 for a nice cloak. Cocoa beans. Genius.

Money actually grew on trees.

Well, grew on trees and floated on water. Oh yeah, baby. Chocolate currency was as holy as Jebus H. Christ.

With all this chocolate hanging around, the Aztecs had a great way to burn off the calories. Nefarious particularly was impressed with the set-up for a game of football. That was until I mentioned the blood sacrifice at the end. Ultimate calorie counting. See, if you lost the game, your ineptitude was considered an insult to the gods. So you had to sacrifice yourself in order to appease them and allow your team to win next time.

Now Nefarious is all about bulking up with some muscle mass. That one is going to take over the world with brute force, and enough smarts to know how to get away with it.

It wasn’t all chocolate and screaming locals. Sinister was rather impressed with the public education system. That’s right – the Aztecs had a free, compulsory education system for teens.

And just to add to the vibe, the museum set up an Aztec playground. After the exhibit, spawnlings could also do extra activities like make Aztec paper gliders, build temples with oversized foam blocks, or even weave a gods eye. Zaltu definitely showed her management skills: minions build temples; Zaltu does her best Godzilla impression; minions think she is cute and rebuild her entertainment. Suckers.

The exhibit is in Sydney until February and worth every dollar. We’re heading back for some more note taking.

BTW: you know I don’t take bribes unless they are significant. And even though there IS chocolate involved, *sigh* I DID NOT receive any from the Australian Museum for this blog post.

Like this:

So there’s a bunch of nude celebrity pics floating around the interwebs. Yes – titties.

Big deal. I’m still breastfeeding Zaltu (teeth and all) so I flash my tits around town everyday. No-one is posting THAT on Tumblr.

But these are NOT your usual photos of fame-grabbing. These are downright genuine invasions of privacy. These are akin to psychological sexual assault; in the action of theft and the continuous creepy move of sharing them around.

I don’t have the photos here, so if you clicked on the Google link hoping to see celebrity chest hairs – PISS OFF! I am not looking, linking, or sharing in this depravity. Worlds are not conquered through such decrepit means. But hey – thanks for boosting my stats.

Instead, I want to point out a more concerning fact about this affair. And it directly relates to the personal attacks each of the exposed victims have suffered.

All of these photos were hacked from Apple’s iCloud. Y’know – that super safe saving area that allows you to access everything on your iPhone from your iPad or Mac. Yeah that. In fact, some of the users hacked swear they had deleted the photos from their account over 6 months ago.

“Misplaced your device? iCloud can help you find it.” And we won’t pester you with a limited number of attempts at user ids and passwords. No – you can try as many times as you like, especially if you have created an algorithm just for this. Good for you, you innovative creep.

Basically, someone forgot to close off the loop for password attempts on the Find My iPhone software with the iCloud. Posters on GitHub were talking about this on Saturday. By Monday, it’s a full- on scandal – with most of the focus on celebrities rather than privacy.

Of course, Apple has now patched this flaw and is working with the FBI to help with situation. What BS!! Password attempt security was basic knowledge in year 11 IPT way back in 1994. Someone is going to pay – and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

So why were these photos ‘out there’ anyway? Well first of all, piss off with your victim-blaming.

These photos were taken on private devices. Just like the one you are probably reading on right now. No, I do not want to see your nipple-slipple shared with your significant other last year. These were private photos shared between spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends. In fact, iOS 7 automatically uploads all photos to iCloud, whether or not you intend to share.

Of course, if you then think you are doing the right thing and deleting as you go along – apparently this doesn’t work. Although there is the usual standard knowledge of deleting, and turning off instant upload/backup in you settings, there is no definitive statement released that this is the best guaranteed way to secure your privacy.

So what do we learn from this?

1. There are some sick people out there. I’m working on a patch for that.
2. All it takes is one lazy minion to screw up your product… Sure, Apple has deep pockets but the level of violation here is pretty high.
3. The women effected have been attacked. In no way in any dominion should people encourage, condone, or even try to justify it by blaming the victims. They did not do the wrong thing. There is no crime for taking photos; there is for invasion of privacy.

My sincerest empathy to those effected. Now, if you would just let me take over the world, I’ll have this fixed by Thursday night.